


It Never Rains (But When it Pours, I Feel it in My Soul)

by traitorhero



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Gen, kinkmeme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traitorhero/pseuds/traitorhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After it's over, he promised his son that they'd go home.<br/>He only wishes he wasn't bringing him back in a casket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Never Rains (But When it Pours, I Feel it in My Soul)

It wasn’t more than a pine box, a few blankets and pillows to make it more comfortable. Not that the occupant could feel anything. 

The body had been laid in it with as much ceremony as they could give it. Which wasn’t much. The Temple had a sinister air to it now, the cold temperatures biting into any exposed flesh. They hadn’t even nailed the lid of the casket shut.

Bill knew that it was a false hope. That he was still alive, that at any second he would wake up with a joke, asking them why he was in a box. But he let Rebecca and Shaun hold onto it. They had already buried one friend. He didn’t know if they could bury another.

Of course, he thought, setting his tablet down, their cell had been luckier than most, even with a Templar spy. Lucy had been buried with honor. (If he was being honest with himself, it was also recompense. For leaving her there. For not allowing her back when she had first told him her fears. For every other Assassin who never received a final resting place.)

With a sigh, he set his tablet on the seat. Rebecca and Shaun had fallen asleep hours ago, curled up in the front seat. He should do the same. Should, but wouldn’t. Cells around the world were still checking in, asking what had happened, if they had succeeded. He had sent the all clear to these, that one of their own had saved them all.

There was a message that he hadn’t responded to, sitting in the top of his inbox. Asking him if they had succeeded. When they were coming home. When their little boy would be with them again. When they would be a family again.

He couldn’t tell her. He had told her when their son was held by Abstergo, had held her back when she had gone for her weapons. And when he told her that he was going to meet his cell, to make sure that their mission was completed, she had told him to protect him. To make sure he came home.

They were almost there, back to the Farm, one of the only Assassin complexes that could be considered safe. The home his son had escaped from, the one the Templars had thought they had destroyed. They hadn’t, only driven it underground, away from prying eyes. Another day or two and they would be at the gates, where his wife would be waiting for them.

Slowly, Bill moved to kneel at the side of the casket. He moved the lid, opening it to view its occupant. The body wasn’t in the best of conditions, one of the arms little more than blackened skin. Whatever power had flowed through him had even burned out his eyes, leaving nothing more than cinders. If they had removed his clothes, Bill had no doubt that a tracery of black lines covered his body, following veins and arteries. 

He didn’t look like someone who had saved the world. Perhaps he hadn’t, releasing one of Those Who Came Before, Juno, into the world. But he had stopped the cataclysm, stopped the world from burning at the cost of his life. 

Bill took his hand, the one that still looked like it had skin. It was cold, the tissue under his nails white. Bringing his other hand up, he tried to warm it, to make it seem alive. To let him live under the illusion that he was in another coma, that he would wake up soon. (That he would sit up and punch him in the jaw. Ask him why he looked like he cared. Anger was preferable to lying in a box. Was preferable to anything if he would just wake up.)

“I’m sorry,” Bill said, placing the hand back in the pine box. He covered his son’s body, moving the blanket up to his chin. With his arm covered and his eyes shut, he almost looked like he was sleeping. Bill shook his head, refusing to let the lie take root in his head. If he let it get to him, he was compromised. If he was compromised, the Brotherhood could fall. So he wouldn’t think about it. He would shut off his emotions and lead, be the one that the Brotherhood needed.

“You okay, Bill?” Rebecca asked, her voice thick with sleep. She peeked over the seat, and Bill closed the casket before she could realize what he had been doing.

“I’m fine, Rebecca,” he said, moving back to his seat. He picked his tablet back up and ignored the new message icon. 

“You should get some sleep,” she said, rapidly gaining consciousness.

“Not yet.”

She shifted, moving Shaun to rest against the passenger’s side window. Twisting her body, she moved into the back of the van and dropped into the seat next to him. “We still need you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his and putting her head on his shoulder. He allowed it, knowing from past experience that she was a tactile person. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to do this to yourself.”

“He shouldn’t have died, then,” Bill said, regretting the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. Rebecca tightened her arms around his.

“He shouldn’t have,” she agreed. Bill looked down at the top of her head, surprised at her words. “But he did what he had to do. What any of us would have done in his place.”

“A right bloody martyr,” Shaun muttered from the cab, “but a good man.”

“Get some sleep, Bill,” Rebecca said, squeezing his arm one last time before returning to Shaun. He heard him say something to her, and her whispered response.

Bill rubbed his eyes, resolving to shut his eyes as soon as he checked his e-mail. The message from his wife still sat in his inbox, a new one above it. The address, _mailerdaemon@hephaestusnetwork.net_ , made him look at the casket. He debated opening the e-mail for a moment, before clicking it.

 _Thank you_ , it said. _Nothing is true, everything is permitted. I don’t think this is what they had in mind, but I don’t think it matters. I’ll be in touch. Tell Mom I love her. - Desmond._

Bill didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He looked at the casket, and opened up a window to reply.


End file.
